Soon, 40MP without the tripod: A conversation with Setsuya Kataoka from Olympus

According to Setsuya Kataoka, future OM-D cameras will be able to create multi-shot high resolution images in such a short time that photographers will be able to use the feature handheld. Mr. Kataoka, General Manager of Olympus’s product and marketing planning division and the man behind the R&D of the OM film cameras and the E system, spoke to us recently in the Czech Republic during a European event to demonstrate the features of the new OM-D E-M5 ll. He went on to explain that he expected the R&D team to make rapid progress in the development of the High Res Shot feature and that in time Olympus will be able to create a system will take less than 1/60sec instead of the current time of about one second.

Mr. Kataoka says that the most important development of the OM-D E-M5 ll is not the High Res Shot mode itself, but the improvements that have been made to the 5-Axis image stabilization system that makes the High Res Shot function possible. The new system allows smaller and more accurate movements to be made to the sensor position so that it can be shifted by half a pixel in each direction to create the multi-sample image. He explained that the sensor has to be able to be moved and stopped so that each pixel is just 0.0002mm from its previous position – with a tolerance of +/-0.0001mm. Now that can be done, the next step will be to make the process of expose-shift-expose-shift happen more quickly.

Kataoka said that OM-D customers who buy small and light camera systems do not want to have to carry a tripod all the time, and that handheld photography is in the basic DNA of the OM-D system. It is essential, he said, to make this feature work without a camera support.

New higher resolution sensors

When asked how the technology will work should the company move to a higher resolution sensor, Kataoka said that they were currently investigating the process and determining whether the movements required to boost resolution needed shifts of half a pixel or the same 0.0002mm, and how many images would be needed to create enough detail. Working on the current system the R&D team had experimented with 2, 4, 6, 8 and 16-shot sequences, and found that beyond eight-shots the resolution added by further exposures was insignificant.

Kataoka said that Olympus’s tests had shown that the OM-D E-M5 ll High Res Shot system has a number of advantages over high resolution full frame camera systems. He said that users of sensors with a similar number of pixels to 40 million had to use a tripod all the time to make their images look sharp, but that OM-D users could switch between using a tripod and not, according to the resolution mode set on the camera.

Better image stabilization is better than just more pixels

The advantage that the improved 5-axis image stabilization system gives OM-D E-M5 ll photographers outweighs simply having more pixels because it produces better detail in images than a full frame DSLR can handheld, Kataoka claims. With no mirror action and no mechanical shutter in electronic shutter mode, the OM-D has no internal vibrations to contend with and so has a great resolution advantage. He said that resolution lost to camera shake in DSLRs reduces the advantage of having more pixels.

ISO and touch AF restrictions

When questioned about the lack of an ISO 100 setting in the OM-D cameras Kataoka acknowledged that to make the most of a wide aperture lens on a bright day lower ISO settings were needed. He explained that it is the limitations of the sensor that prevent Olympus from offering ISO 100, but that the company had increased the shutter speed range to 1/16,000sec in electronic shutter mode, and to 1/8000sec in mechanical shutter mode, to help compensate. Sensor manufacturers have concentrated mostly on providing high ISO settings that are not often used, he said, and had neglected low settings in their favor, but Olympus hopes this will change very soon.

Other restraints placed on the company by outside suppliers include the limited area in which touch AF can be used. Kataoka explained that their suppliers are working on making the touch function available right to the edges of the screen.

Further discussions on the touch AF are being held internally at Olympus about the system used in the E-M5 ll. Sometimes the current overrides the user’s desired point by selecting one that the camera thinks more suitable. A touch-selected AF point does not always remain in position as the composition changes between shots. Kataoka said that there may be a firmware update to address this, depending on the result of their testing. Whether the AF point is automatically adjusted or not may become another user option.

We discussed the menu and button system of the E-M5 ll and Kataoka acknowledges that the user experience can be quite complicated. He said it is always a question of finding a balance between including all the features that customers demand and maintaining an easy to use interface - while still making the camera fully customizable. When asked if he would like to make a digital version of the OM-4, with minimal buttons and no rear screen he said that he would love to and that he had been thinking about it for a long time, but he added that he’d have to concentrate on products that make a profit first!

Look for more from Olympus on DPR soon - we also spoke with senior executives at the CP+ tradeshow and will have a full interview coming in the near future.

I was not thrilled with the E-M5 II when it first came out. But the more I read about it and after seeing the review video's I can admit I was wrong. I have also read a couple articles about Olympus working on making it so you can shoot 40mp hand held. I had a feeling this was their next step. It's my understanding that it's not going to be mechanical like some on here have mentioned, but a correction done with the software. If they can do this and still sell a 40mp camera for a fraction of the cost of a full frame....... I think thats going to be a major game changer.

"He said that users of sensors with a similar number of pixels to 40 million had to use a tripod all the time to make their images look sharp, but that OM-D users could switch between using a tripod and not, according to the resolution mode set on the camera."

I suppose that camera movement has a more pronounced visible effect in very high resolution sensors, in the sense that you can't get full sensor resolution benefit (eg. the images look sharp, but not 40MP sharp). This is somewhat logical, imagine what would happen if you would look at the hand movements with a smaller and smaller microscope. The movements would appear larger and larger.

yes, i think both Luke and me know that. The point is that a 40MPx image obtained from a 16MPx sensor shifting camera over a total exposure of 1/60 seconds, handheld, will be MUCH more affected by this than a 40MPx sensor shooting a single exposure of 1/600 seconds.Also the "OMD users can use or not a tripod while others have to use it always" is just plain stupid...

Luke, I think he means that you can achieve 16mp handheld with IBIS, but not 40mp without IBIS.So for 40mp you always need a tripod, no matter what camera you use. But for 16mp you can use a stabilized camera like OMD.I also guess that IBIS for a 40mp sensor is currently not possible, but we'll see what Sony does with the 7R.2.

@Michael: well, you can have already 36 or even 50MPx with a stabilized lens - both sony & nikon and now with the new 50canons ... so no...

And after all he made some statements which are completely false - as a general manager, master of photography tech, etc, etc... it's just not excusable.Of course, you can find some camera comparison where he might be partial true... and so this is why marketing gibberish is the main language of today...

There sure are some that can do... for example the 24-70/F4 L, a few tele and super tele (like latest 70-200/2.8 IS both canon and nikon).

But that was not really the point... 1st - the "pixel level sharpness" is more related to the pixel size than total pixel number. And for that matter, the pixel pitch in the OMD is 3.6um while on the D8XX is 4.8um.So, in the same shaking condition (IS aside) the pixel level quality of the D800 is a bit better. (Canon 5DS/R pixel pitch is 4.1).

2nd - what the IBIS does for the OMD sure the IS in the lens can achieve (maybe even at a lower level if you really think that), but yes it is available only in certain lenses - however not sow few good lenses that it is a negligible amount. And if you resize the 36MPx image to 16MPx and compare the images, you will see where is the advantage.

mechanical is part of unreliable system ,that all of new generation factory will eliminate.

or about Olympus can not provide new image sensor with more pixel?talk to Panny , please produce new mega-pixel sensor hu hu hu,i guess Oly can not order others sensor factory except panasonic - join factory.

@agachart the vast vast majprity of us domt wamt a higher resolution sensor. You go up in megapixels and high iso performance will suffer. 16mpx is more than enough provided your framing doesnt suck consistently

ok ,will use nomad sensor and don't develop higher pixel image sensor,pixel quality depend by semiconductor company,weak of image sensor production is can not receive light(image) thorough 100% it still lost if they(company) make higher-pixel then lost of image will much than lower-pixel that is old problem,@dulynoted ,you are right in this case,but sensor develop still necessary,stop it and back to pastuse 5-8mpx for shift-high-res become 50/80 mpx is Moron solution,if giant semiconductor company found pixel-solution then shift-high-res will delete,

today ,true problem of Olympus they can not provide new image sensor (include more-pixel sensor)Unbelievable, Olympus has Top 1 sell mirrorless in japan can not provide new sensor,what the hell!!!

sorry,if my words so hard,i know you not mean stop develop ,leave the car use the house,throw the gun , use sward,the true, next generation image sensor always release,include more more pixel.hope it better and resolve pixel-prolem.

@agachartI realize english isnt your native language. Slow down, vet a dictionary, and write legibly. Neither I nor anyone epse can understand a thing you are saying. Regardless I hope that they do not increase the megapixel count. I would much rather have a lower base iso, around 50 would be good, a higher max shutter speed, faster sensor readout with electronic shutters, better dynamic range, and better high iso. Being able to use the electronic shutter for flash sync up to 1/1000 or 1/2000 would be even better.a few more megapixels means I can crop a little more and get slightly more detail. Neither of those matter much.

ok,first i want talk,increase pixel look bad image quality,because semiconductor company don't resolve lose of light to photo-site but they can resolve this problem ,higher-mega-pixel will better than current 16mpx sensor?

@agachart your an imbecile. I dont want more pixels. I want an improved sensor with better dynamic range. Never will I ever want more pixels unless they can improve in all other areas simultaneously. They can develop new sensors without adding more megapixels. No matter what they develop the 16mpx senspr will always outperform one with more megapixels if they are the same size. 16mpx is the sweet spot.

I don't buy the mechanical motor will work on a smaller pixel pitch (so no more than 16mp from m43) or get better than 2.5x resolution out of the sensor. I buy they could take full resolution shots at 1/60s but you still need 8 of em which slows you down to 1/7.5 s. Also your image stabilization is off, being borrowed for multi-shot work. Handheld 1/60s no stabilization is not going to be terribly still to begin with let alone 1/7.5s effective.

I think this feature will always be limited to essentially still objects while tripod mounted. Useful, but not anywhere near to the point where you'd consider this a 40mp sensor.

In 1972, Yoshihisa Maitani lead a team in creating the OM-1, thus begun the trend of smaller, more compact SLR that bucked the larger and bulky SLRs popularized by the Nikon F series. I remember the classic commercial that touted the OM-1 as the Mercedes-Benz of camera.

I am highly impressed by Olympus products. have the Pearl mini cassette recorder, the Pen-F, and a point & shoot digital camera that wind-up in my brother's hand (as his retirement gift) less than a week after I bought it.

I am a very happy owner of Nikon DSLR (D800 & D5100). No but . . .I am seriously considering an OM-D for a walk-around camera.

Be careful about getting into Olympus gear... you might get hooked. I used an Olympus OM system, OM-1 in the 70s, OM-4 in the 80s and 90s. But I eventually added a Canon, and so folliwed Canon into the digital age. I currently own a 6D and a 60D, lrnses, etc.

A few years ago, frustrated with my last P&S camera for big-camera-unfriendly things, I picked up a Pen E-PM1, not much larger than a P&S. Ok, no DSLR, but shots that were decent in technical quality.

Today, I have the OM-D E-M5, six lenses, and an intense craving for some PRO lenses and the mkii. I only bought Olympus gear in 2014, no new Canon gear (it is a pretty complete system).

Took my OM-D hiking in Arizona last week, 1850 shots over a free day and a half. Lots of 10, 20, 40 shot composites, mostly in good light and fast lenses anyway... I did not miss the Canon. Particularly on e way up the mountain.

Looks like an endorsement of Oly.I am aware of it's capabilities and shortcomings.My intention is to have it solely as a walk-about camera. Will only get one lens telezoom roughly equivalent to a 20~140mm full frame, which would be a 10~70mm 4/3rd lens. Otherwise, I'll just stick with my Nikon D5100 for my walk-about camera

Somehow a similar multi-sampling technique has been in use for military radar imagers for many decades. Multiple samples with a slight time/space difference allow for better resolution for a number of reasons, a prominent one being diffraction.

Consider also that, while moving a half pixel to increase effective spatial resolution, they're also sampling a full pixel offsets. I'm pretty sure they're capturing R, G, and B per pixel, eliminating the moire and resolution loss due to de-Bayering. Sure, it's nit a practical mode for many purposes. But used correctly, that's more real resolution without compromising low light use.

Too funny, the full framers bad backs from lugging all the crap around must be really giving them hell! And here they are full of knowledge and advice on whats good and whats not. As a DSLR and M43 user I'm more than happy to watch the world go by and see what pans out. More than pleased to cop flak too. Happy days!

and ... really, why bother with "sensor shift" ... you can use a motorized pano-tripod head, that moves the camera, say in a few thousand steps side and up, and here you go.Also, you really can give up the bayer pattern as well: you can manually switch colored glass in front of the lens!

In a way, you just described how some studio large format digital cameras work (BetterLight, for example). Ok, they use a bar with separate R, G, and B rows of pixels, three rows, not just four pixels. But it's basically the technology used in photo scanners.

As for robot pan heads, that's old news. But you get a panorama with that, not increased resolution of the given lens view.

Never mind the bl00dy "40mp without a tripod". How about designing an M43 camera with controls that someone has actually TESTED FOR USABILITY! I can't speak for the other models but the EM5 (mk 1) is a complete ergonomic disaster, utterly impossible to use without constantly disturbing settings that need to remain as intentionally set.And then of course there's the firmware. And the scabby focusing. Trying to pack in yet more "feechers", groan. But maybe that's what the majority of the punters want.

"M43 camera with controls that someone has actually TESTED FOR USABILITY!"Huh? Have you shot with various Oly and Panny MFTs?GH2, GH3, GH4, EM1 are totally usable.GX7 and EM5 are very useable, although due to their smaller size you can accidentally bump a button.Face it, there's a limit to small size without conflict in the physical layout.If the smaller cameras were bigger, then everyone would be griping about how big they were. Except those who gripe about small cameras not looking impressive enough. Or griping about bumping buttons by mistake.The dimensions of all cameras are clearly posted. Pick the one that works for you. It is not really so difficult.

I'm 6ft 1", 230lbs... not a tiny guy. Using the E-M5 has never been the slightest problem to me. Seems plenty ergonomic, coming from both Olympus film SLRs and Canon DSLRs. A big one is that the dials are better placed than on a Canon. I have accidently knocked EV and other settings on my Canons, never (so far) on the E-M5.

Of course, to each one's own... plentry of other cameras to choose from.

Not one of these comments has mentioned what to me is the biggest failing of the m43 system, and that's the inability to track and keep in focus fast moving objects against a plain background, e. g. BIF, which my DSLR does so well. I have the original EM5 and a D7100. If Olympus could solve that, I'd upgrade my EM5 tomorrow.

Half a pixel movement, well sure, handheld would be great, but don't try to confuse that against real action shoot and need for a real high photosite count sensor for those times.

Then the ability to precisely move a sensor pixel is not new. Its how to miniaturize the mechanism and still maintain effectiveness that's the break through, and of course the control over the whole thing.

In fact I am more interested in deploying the sensor shift in a multi shoot scenario where the sensor can take 5 or 9 shoots with photosite shifted one pixel a time including diagonal ( together with the original start position ) that would give us both the full spectrum / chroma info and whole lot better luminance info to construct the total image. That would eliminate a whole lot of imaging problem we have today already. This would benefit together with a higher photosite count sensor. The extra MP IMHO is desirable but not really exactly exciting yet

I absolutely hate this marketing-bullS-talk about Olympus not having a ISO 100. Of cource they have it. They have just named that as ISO 200 and similary ISO 400 is really ISO 200 and so on. Anyone who does not believe me should go and see this site: http://www.sensorgen.info/OlympusOM-D-E-M5.html

In perspective I think it's "better low sensitive" levels on their sensor. You can name ISO what you want but it's how they compare with APS-C and FF that realky counts. In higlight areas, low sensitivities allow you to capture more deatils and shades.

You're completely incorrect about the ISOs being "named" wrong. You can't name ISO numbers arbitrarily... in fact, the very name, "International Standards Organization", ought to suggest that fact. All major camera makers rate their sensor based on the ISO 12232:2006 standard. And while that standard actually offers five approved techniques for measuring effective ISO, all Japanese camera manufucturers are required by the CIPA DC-004 standard to use either the REI or SOS method, both improved methods introduced in the 2006 version of the ISO 12232 standard.

Wow, this is a really genius idea! When this technology allows us to shoot as low as @1/60sec with user-transparent sensor movement, we get a small sensor with native-like huge resolution - this is definitely not a gimmick for me! This can get only better with the time, shifting the sensor pretty quickly, like 1/1000 one day. Now all my Oly MFT lenses see like a good investment :-D. Small camera with superb lenses - and huge resolution!

I wish Oly would allow us to put EVERY menu setting onto the FN buttons. Why is it still not possible? It's only SW at the end - it could handle the menu settings as metadata and not hard-coded preselected options like now! Come on Oly, assign the menu items some model's IDs and make user-defined binding to the custom FN buttons! Why can't I set stuff like "boost EVF on/off" to the FN? This would really make the camera customizable!

Every new technology that has ever been added to cameras has, at one time or another, been dismissed as a "gimmick". Auto exposure metering, auto focus, image stabilization, etc., we're all labeled as "gimmicks" by people very much like yourself at the time.

The sensor works great and there is no reason to change it - there is no better technology available at the moment. These refinements and improvements are the sign of a maturing system. There is not much else that they can do to make the system better except to provide more lenses and features like these.

Oh, and the discussion of ISO 100 was some of the most pertinent commentary than I've seen from an exec.

@HowaboutRAW - the point is, everything has to start somewhere. You can't just write everything off as a "gimmick".

BTW, the rate of technological progression happens much faster today than it did back in the early 1980's, three decades ago. That's what happens when computing power has been doubling every two years (Moore's Law).

Sensors just don't improve every year.. and adding more pixels without an improvement in noise just gets you a different set of limitations, not an improvement. Of course, the big guys and now Sony do that -- they'd like to sell you a few different bodies. Easier to do when you're Canon, at around 50% of the ILC market, than Olympus, fighting for a share of that 25% that isn't Nikon or Canon. And still, Canon had that same 18Mp sensor in more than half theIr cameras for over six years.

Now laptops, that's something that improve all the time. My new is faster than most folks' desktops, with a quad core i7 and 16GB RAM. Ok, my 6-core desktop with 64GB RAM is faster still on CPU, but the new laptop has a PCI SSD that's twice as fast as my desktop's mere mortal SATA SSD, wireless faster than GigE, and a 4K quantum dot display. Amazing color AND practical proof of Einstein's mistake.

Success also makes a company conservative. Canon's at the top, every direction looks like down. So the make safe moved. Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Samsung, they're hungrier. Thus, more interesting... more willing to try new things, to take a risk. Successful risk is what we like to call "innivation". Unsuccessful risk makes those end-of-year lists that no one wants to be on.

Interestingly, Pentax representative said that they have already experimented with sensor shift technology to achieve same goal as this, now advertised by Olympus (and Hassy in the past). But, Pentax admits, the result is a large size dataset, plenty of megapickles, but the quality of the picture does not improve.So instead of delivering that — which obviously is not difficult — they would rather focus how to make native resolution even better.

Which is interesting, as it better sheds light on what Olympus really wants to achieve: a perception that their small cameras (which are indeed limited by sensor size and performance worse that others), are also competitors when it comes to large image sizes.

The OMD EM5 II multi-shot samples (at least some of them, at some sites) show a clear, substantial improvement in image detail over the single frame 16MP images, so why should we care that Pentax says that it was not able to achieve any significant IQ gains in its efforts? I am tempted to quote Aesop "Those grapes are sour anyway."

Rich- I wouldn't say Pentax "brings nothing to the table" either though. I mean, their K-3 and other cameras capable of turning the AA filter on/off (the actual results, not that it really has an AA filter) is actually pretty innovative, and Pentax had several axis IBIS long before Olympus.

Prove it? Pentax had axis tilt. So you have up/down and axis tilt (look it up). That's multi axial IBIS. You can even shift the sensor and tilt when setting the camera on a tripod to adjust the composition a little bit - as an option- so you don't have to move the camera on the tripod! The K-5 came long before the OMD EM5, and this capability existed in Pentax SDLR's before the K-5.

caver3d- you can look at the Pentax 100D - the first one back in December 2006. Look at the 2nd page of features. That's X, Y and Z axis. Nobody else had something like this until Olympus further developed with the OMD EM-5 pretty much. And sure, the Olympus covers more axes, but doesn't take away the Pentax anti-shake is multi-axis, including tilt.

Lassoni - fate!Howabout- the question was about my claim that Pentax had multi-axis IBIS long before Olympus. So yes, my answer proved the point.

Moreover, the Pentax mechanism other than gyros for measuring pitch & yaw is all that is necessary for the sensor to correct for those (see the Sony 5 axis ibis discussion elsewhere). The Olympus sensor also doe snot rotate along x & y even though Olympus 3d rendering animations show it doing so.

I am not changing the terms of the question. This was what I said "... and Pentax had several axis IBIS long before Olympus." and what carver was daring me to provide evidence for- and I did.Moreover, Pentax had it before the E-3 anyway, if we want to follow what you are saying.

Do not judge my statement above as “mine” because it is the transcript. Pentax engineer said the amount of data increases significantly, but there is nothing significant to be gained from it. In their opinion, other methods of improving resolution performance without increasing number of pixels are more intelligible. Consider this: Pentax speaks from the perspective of 24 MPs, most likely 36MPs in the FF, then the 51 MPs in MF too, and even the resolution performance of the native 24 MPs surpasses anything Olympus can offer natively. They are in a different boat altogether than Olympus, who must — using inferior sensor size and performance — prove it is still somewhat competent system. Olympus has abandoned everything and focuses on m4/3. Pentax, on the other hand, did not abandon anything and justifies each tech to its own. Why would they bother increasing the resolution performance of the K-3 when the FF will bring that, and more, while using the same mount?

Zvonimir- that is fine, but the problem is that Olympus already proved that they were able to get notable gains in resolution data. The fact that the smaller sensor Olympus is using out resolves in this mode the Pentax K-3 is quite remarkable.

Nobody is saying what Pentax should do or not in order to increase resolution.You quoted the claim from Pentax and the claim as far as Olympus is concerned *has been proven wrong* already because Olympus *did achieve* better resolution.

Of course Olympus's solution has limitations, but it seems they are working to expand the operating window of this solution. So basically it doesn't matter what Pentax said regarding getting more data- Olympus *proved* they are getting more data with this approach. It's not theory.

Precisely. The high res mode is truly remarkable feature / idea at the moment, and will only get even better as time goes on. Kinda turns the E-M5 into a meril since those too get best results on a tripod?

Howard- please don't put words in my mouth and read what I said that car asked about. I said multi axis, not 5 axis. Way later on I mentioned what Olympus was doing. I don't understand how that changes the point which is that Pentax had multi axis IBIS first.

Yes, it's an added point. Yet, the first point/claim I made is what I was replying to carver3d, is what he asked me to prove, and it's what I proved. I don't understand what's the problem when both claims are true anyway.

It's strange that this sub-thread has wandered into a rather trivial debate about which company had what aspect of IBIS first. But since we are here:Didn't Konica-Minolta have IBIS first, before either Olympus or Pentax? (Strange that the new owner Sony moved away from it for a while, but now is moving back!)

Anyway, I care far more about what various companies have now and are likely to provide in the foreseeable future, not who had what when in past. And on that front, Olympus and Pentax are between them doing the most interesting things with their "levitating sensors", so I am inclined to praise both, rather than pick nits with either.

BJL- I made a claim that Pentax had this before Olympus- multi axis IBIS. Carver3d asked me to prove it, and I did. I can't tell you what is the problem with HowaboutRAW- it's pretty simple. Carver3d asked me for evidence of my claim and I provided it. I never suggested that Minolta didn't have IBIS first or not.

But then more over, Pentax had tilt in the IBIS years before Olympus first had it with the OMD-Em5.

And the contest of all this is that Pentax was said to "bring nothing to the table" when they are also innovators. Nothing more.

Olympus wasn't the first to use sensor shifting to increase resolution. Hasselblad did it back in 2011 in the H4D-200MS, delivering a 200Mp image from their 50Mp sensor. It really worked. They also had a four shot mode that stacked 50Mp images with 1 pixel offsets to capture RGB for each pixel site.

The fact that Pentax can't get something working is hardly a reason to claim it doesn't exist. Olympus says it's only the newer steppers in the mkII that make thus possible.

The problem is you added the 5 axis thing and pretended that the first Olympus with sensor based stabilization was the EM5.

How hard is this to figure out, you changed the terms so that Pentax looked to be far in advance of Olympus, when in fact they came out with sensor based stabilization the same year. And that's a problem.

No, I didn't pretend the first Olympus with sensor based stabilization was the EM5. You are making that up. My response and proof to carverd3d is pretty straight forward.

The reason Pentax was far in advance to Olympus is because Pentax had tilt in the IBIS, and well, that's true also. When I said multi Axis I was referring to the ability to rotate too.

There is no pretend here. It's the truth. Pentax had tilt, Olympus didn't. And this in the context of the comment that Pentax didn't bring anything new along. I know what the E-3 had because hell, I had one.

No. I didn't. It clearly says: ". That's X, Y and Z axis. Nobody else had something like this until Olympus further developed with the OMD EM-5 pretty much. "So I am very specific in pointing out tilt, and I mentioned nobody else has it until Olympus further developed (sort of implying they had something actually) with the EM5.

I delineated specifically, what nobody else had- correctly.

Now, you could point out that perhaps when I said multi-axis an IBIS of the E-3 would qualify as such, but I think it's pretty clear I am not pretending anything. And most importantly, I was also pointing this out in the context of "Pentax doesn't bring anything to the table."

HowAboutRAW: I was not disagreeing with what you said; my post just happened to appear after yours, but I was commenting on the thread as a whole.

Raist3D: I agree with your defense of Pentax as having made some innovations in the realm of IBIS: for example, using the IBIS motors as an optional moiré avoidance tool, in place of a low pass filter, is cool! But the early IBIS models from those two companies being mentioned mainly reflect that Olympus and Pentax both followed the IBIS lead of Konica-Minolta at about the same time, a years or two after K-M pioneered IBIS, so I would not get to excited about claiming either O or P as the great innovator on the basis of those 2006-2007 models.

Just EVERY company out there provides optical stabilization with similar level of performance (4-5 stops of stabilization). And the stabilization technology only gets better over time - unlike m43 system which cannot provide "just more pixels" due to its sensor size limitation.

No matter what Panasonic, Nikon, Canon say, you can't joggle around lenses inside lenses to provide image stabilization and not expect any optical penalty. Take any multi-element lens and shift one of the elements, or tilt it even a small amount and watch what happens to the image.

That statement simply says that it is more important to have image stabilization than to have more pixels. And I agree. Without image stabilization I would get blurry images - more pixels wouldn't improve anything.

As for other companies offering IS, only Pentax offers it in-camera. The lens based one is great if you like it, but even then those systems that rely on it don't provide it in all their lenses.

You want me to invite you to find blur in my 70-200/4 IS or 100/2.8 IS shots as well? I will post them for you in a tiny web resolution, with the EXIF stripped, just in case. Oh, and I will post a few 100% high speed crops, as well.

Sony is using in-camera IS now, too, in some of their E-Mount models. Interesting, particularly because they were one of the companies that pioneered OIS. One inherent advantage of sensor shift is rotation... optical can't correct for rotation about the axis of the lens. Sony has used "hybrid" IS to deal with thus on camcorders, meaning OIS plus digital (extra pixels) to correct for some Z rotation.

"OM-D E-M5 ll High Res Shot system has a number of advantages over high resolution full frame camera systems. He said that users of sensors with a similar number of pixels to 40 million had to use a tripod all the time to make their images look sharp, but that OM-D users could switch between using a tripod and not, according to the resolution mode set on the camera."

It's a TOTAL LIE. 40MP FF camera paired with 100mm lens requires the same amount of shutter speed 10MP m43 camera paired with 100mm lens requires to be sharp at pixel level. I am fine with 1/250 at 10MP body with 200mm effective focal length, and that's what I need for 40MP FF to be sharp with 100mm lens. And 1/250 sec shutter speed is totally achievable in many conditions.

On the other hand, OMD user will ALWAYS need tripod and totally stationary subject as the whole process takes ONE SECOND.

"On the other hand, OMD user will ALWAYS need tripod and totally stationary subject as the whole process takes ONE SECOND."

So is it still going to be "ALWAYS", even when the process takes far less time than "ONE SECOND"? LOL. Did you even read what he said about where the technology is headed? Future OMD users will be able to do this process in fractions of a second.

He is doing blatant marketing but I think he has a point: going far above 25MP on a camera implies that, if you really whant to get all the detais, assuming you are using excellent lenses, you have to keep that camera on a tripod or just get average detail, while shoting at 16MP handheld you are not loosing anything (you paid for). What he doesnt whant to say (and should) is that you can get excellent hi res pictures with an OM-5DII at 1/3 of the cost of a 36MP camera, and excellent m4/3 lenses will cost a fraction of FF ones. You won't strictly compete but let's talk after a full day climbing a mountain which is the best camera. ; )

Shooting 40MP FF camera is nothing special - it is affected by hand shake EXACTLY the same as 10MP m43 camera with 1/2 FOV lens (or roughly twice 'effective' FOV). So if you can handheld 10MP 100mm 1/125sec you will be able to handheld 40MP 50mm 1/125sec just fine.

Panasonic showed off a pretty intetesting sensor technology that might show up in m43 once perfected. As everyone knows (or should), most sensors use RGB Bayer arrays to deliver color images. That means, no matter what else you do, you are tossing out 2/3 of the light that goes to each photo site in the filter.

What Panny is developing uses micro color splitters -- light is split on the way in, much more is captured (not quite 100% but close). Obviously the proof is in the result, but it's good to know nothing's fixed forever yet in camera technology.

So yes, an Olympus EMX with the high ISO performance of the Nikon Df would be huge draw, and the higher ISOs would allow for more/faster trickery with the moving sensor mega pixel multiplication method.

I think this complain is a fast, sneak bite to their sensor providers (Panasonic) and not a general complaining to the whole sensor market: he just didn't what to be a plain blatant one.Panasonic is aiming to highr and higher iso for thei m4/3 sensors, which are not that usefull if yoi ever have used a m4/3 camera, i stead of aiming at lower iso (below 200) with better detail sensitivity.

High ISO is relevant to larger formats, where you need to keep the aperture closed to gain DOF and that forces you to push the ISO. On a format like MFT, ISO 100 is far more relevant. This is not BS, it's a frank discussion that unfortunately goes above the heard of ignorant users.

There is no way ISO X from a small format will have the same performance as the same ISO on a larger format, within the same technological timeframe. It's not possible. Talking about it just demonstrates ignorance and wishful thinking.

@HowAboutRAW: Don't mix up topics. If you want thinner DOF, High ISO won't give you that. For a given DOF, the way you get that shot on a small format is with a faster lens *at lower ISO*. That is why low ISO is much more important than high ISO for MFT.

That *was* my point: I was just describing the use on a larger format: that the need for high ISO is derived from a use of higher F-stops. On a smaller format, lower ISO and smaller F-stops will provide the same DOF and exposure time as on the larger format, so there is no need for high ISO, just a need for faster apertures and lower ISO.

Olympus knows this - that is why they talk about low ISO and about producing even faster lenses.

@HowaboutRAWwhat about racing? What about sports? What about wildlife shooting? What about group portraiture? What about macro photography? What about wedding photography where you want groups of people interacting in focus? How about event photography? I can think of dozens of situations where one wants to have as deep a dof as possible. Not everyone uses a camera the same way. In many cases, the majority of cases even, photographers are typically looking for more in focus. Not less.

But not often do you hear that a camera is on the way that fixes the major limitations of another camera that hasn't been released yet.They are kind of shooting themselves in the foot, but I'm sure Olympus loyalists will buy it regardless.

@fmian, except that's a fact. he's being truthful about it. you could wait. and wait. and when the next camera releases, you know the next one will be better so what? you wait again. and wait again?

every product you buy will improve, for the most part. you buy thrm now because you need them now. if i need to replace my camera tomorrow, it's not practical or reasonable for me to just do without a camera for another 1-3 years until the next iteration.

most cameras now are so competent they will do what you need. if you're just gear heading and not shooting, sure, keep waiting for better and better cameras. me, i make money now with my cameras and i make picture now and tomorrow to capture my life.

when a better iteration comes and i need to upgrade, i will. if i don't i wont. my upgrade cycle is every 2-3 generations of body.

I dont see how high rez mode that requires a tripod to even activate is better than high mega pixel camera that sometimes benefits from a tripod. And, just so nobody gets midguided, pixel counts have nothing to do with effect of vibration. According to his logics, you might as well argue bad eye sight is a good thing since its prevents you from spotting dust on the floor.

It'a not "better" but it is an alternative wich brings several undeniable advantages: way lighter well built bodies and lenses, good full sensor resolution at 16MP, and keeping the res down, with a BSI implementation, you'll get high MP imagages with larger area per sensor dot, meaning improving light sensitivity at a fraction of the cosy. Full frame will keep selling to pro and pro wannabies, but competition will be a though one for APS-C, because most of cropped 1.5/6 sensors have crappy dedicated glasses (Ni/Ca/Pe/Sony), because FF lenses are large, expensive and get weird focals on them, and because m4/3 will suddently get more attractive for everyone. I'm going to upgrade from Canon to this OM-5D II "because" of this 40mp tecnology (and weight, and small good lens/body, and better IS, and in body perspective correction, and 100% wiewfinder coverage, and dedicated common focal lenses) and I think this camera will apeal to many other as well, but Setsuya Kataoka here is speaking of future, better cameras. Other will try this sensor shift technology, but larger sensor are penalized and Sony got much worse res on a FF axis stabilization than Olympus with their one, whic allows NOW, a 40MP image on a m4/3 sensor. Remember that this pro sealed OM-D5 II will cost about 1100€ versus 3K+ of every other Hig Res FF weighting 1/3!

Depends on your needs, of course. I have the original OM-D E-M5. My other camera is a Canon EOS 6D. The whole point of that camera is great low light performance.

So now I could buy one of the new 5D 50Mp variations and shoot 50Mp with all my lenses. Nice option, but it's rare to need 50Mp, for me personally. I shoot lots of composite shots... 20Mp on the Canon is dandy, 16Mp on the Olympus is great, and I still need 64GB of RAM on my PC to stitch some of the larger composites. 50Mp does me little good there... do I really need 10GB photos expanding to 25GB? I do not.

But if I could get a 50Mp shot out of the 6D for those times I'm on a tripod and not shooting multiple shots, essentially free and not adversely affecting low light, that'd be ok with me. Add in the no-Bayer mosaic multi-shot mode too, whike you're at it. So the new E-M5 has my attention.. the improved anti-shake and much better viewfinder as well.

Sensor manufacturers have concentrated mostly on providing high ISO settings that are not often used, he said, and had neglected low settings in their favor, but Olympus hopes this will change very soon.

In my experience, the number one complaint of the average snapshooter is poor low-light performance; so I take issue with your assertion that high-ISO settings are not often used. In the past, they were not often used because the results were too noisy, but this is definitely starting to change. I predict that better low-light image quality will be wildly popular with snapshooters the world over.

But no one said anything about kit zooms here. And Olympus has fast optically amazing zooms and telephotos. They are far from inexpensive, but they shame Nikon and Canon. So being able to use an EM2 easily at ISO 25,000 would be a big deal for Olympus.

But it may be a while, since the only two APSC sensors close to usable at ISO 12,000 are the D7100 and 7DII. (No, not the Samsung NX1, in someways the NX30 is better for higher ISOs.)

The statement was about snapshooters... casual users that want better images than their smartphone. They are rarely in a situation that requires anything over ISO6400. Heck I rarely find myself in need over ISO6400 and I take my camera with me everywhere. This isn't to say there aren't actual photographers that do require much better performance with even higher ISOs, but I don't think they fit the description of "snapshooter".

I think it was a side kick to m4/3 sensor provider, which nowdays only come form Panasonic. They are too focused on video and are leaving still lagging behind. You won't get much from a 25 or 60 ISO level in video, but shoting still, with IS and higer shutter speed, you get better res and richer colours. Low ISO levels on m4/3 is much more limiting today than, say, usable 12500, which you can compensate for with betrer IS. You could use ND filters but still losing details in overexposing areas because of them and ipersensitive sensor.

Regarding multiple shots without tripod: apparently samsung is able to read full 28MP sensor in NX1 240 times a second. It might be DR limited, we don't know yet, but if sensors are able to complete full scan in 1/1000s in few years time it would make multishot usable without tripod. For 8 exposures one would need to hold still for 1/125s which is quite manageable even on tele lens with OIS already. It could also bring CMOS sensors closer to dropping mechanical shutter altogether.

it has nothing to do with data acquisition from the sensor that's just movie mode. It's the IS motors actuation that needs to be super quick and precise to move the sensor to the correct spot before the next data acquisition takes place. Oly needed to make the IS that much better to achive the hires mode. It sounds like they think they can do better. Let's hope it makes it to the em1.2.

otto, I was asking is it possible smultaneously to engage OIS and 40MP mode? The sensor shift would have to add together the movements required for both functions. So at the same time as executing its 8-point circuit to achieve the 40MP image, the sensor would need to overlay the compensatory movements required for OIS. It might be possible but it is far from self-evident, and the issue is not addressed in the article.

Olympus is one of the most innovated photography companies in the business. Olympus cameras aren't top of the class in any one area, but they're just very good and fun all-around! Their engineers are some of the best out-of-box thinkers!

@Jonathan F/2: Please tell me what other camera company has better in-body image stabilization? Olympus is at the top of the class in that category and by quite a large margin. But I do completely agree with the rest of your post ;)

Olympus' stabilisation is a fantastic feature. I shoot a lot of video now and use Panasonic GH4 cameras for that. They are also a forward thinking company. The large video data rate from the GH4 sensor, and its need for cooling restrict it from using sensor based stabilisation. The GH4 is great for video but can't match the OM cameras for still photography, and vice versa. Not a problem. I will also be getting an OM-D E-M5 II body. That's the beauty of the M43 collaboration. The kit will be great for both still and video photography and be much smaller and lighter than an equivalent DSLR kit.

Sony is the other option but unfortunately the native lens range just isn't there at this point.

"He said that users of sensors with a similar number of pixels to 40 million had to use a tripod all the time to make their images look sharp, but that OM-D users could switch between using a tripod and not, according to the resolution mode set on the camera."

BS. FF users with high res sensors do not need a tripod all the time for sharp images, and they have the lower resolution option as well (Canon has lower res "RAW"s in-camera, for example).

Are you sure that you did not interview an m43 forum member posing as an Olympus representative?

In order to take maximum advantage of high resolution systems of any kind; firstly, high end primes are called for. Secondly, very solid tripods, ... weighted.If you are hand-holding any camera systen today, .. Yes! you can get acceptably very sharp images.

A 36, 40mp is no better than the 20, 24mp when hand held.

I think what isn't being made clear here is that if you shoot mainly for uncroped images to be printed at reasonable size or for screen view mainly, then we don't need tripods.However, be it Olympus or Nikon FF, to get the maximum results from our heafty investment, .. we need a stable platform.

There is 1/30 hand held, there is also 1/300 (below the telephoto range). In many situations, handheld 36mp on FF does provide more resolution, even unpleasant moire like in the D810 handheld shots on this site.

I shoot both M43 and with a Nikon D800. While the D800 results in better all-around photos, the window to attain those nice photos is smaller. With my OMD, I can shoot in ridiculous low light scenarios, stay quite portable and carry a full kit for travel. M43 won't replace high res DSLRs, but I find the entire system to be far more flexible.

"Sensor manufacturers have concentrated mostly on providing high ISO settings that are not often used, he said, and had neglected low settings in their favor, but Olympus hopes this will change very soon."

As QEs go up, it gets harder to have a big enough place to dump all that charge. The problem as I see it is sensors trying to use the same integration time for all pixels. For example, why not have a bright pixel sampled multiple times, and then averaged (digitally), during an exposure long enough to get detail in the dark pixels? I've been doing a better variant of this in my research: http://aggregate.org/DIT/ei20140205.pdf

Actually, it's mostly a matter of fancier control logic for the sensor; the extra computation is easy. To do this with minimal mods to a conventional sensor, the "averaging" I was talking about literally just becomes summation that could easily be done as fast as the sensor readout. Don't know what averaging DxO-9 is doing, but such operations on the raw buffer inside a Canon PowerShot (compiled ARM32 code put inside the camera via CHDK) happen faster than writing a raw file.

More than likely what you're really thinking about is DxO constructing a noise model for the image... and yes, that's not computationally cheap. Fortunately, we don't need to do that just to avoid saturating bright pixels.

My guess is that DXO Prime looks at say 30 pixels and looks for one or two that stand out, isolates those and then averages them with the rest of the 30 or so, then moves on to another overlapping 30 pixels and repeats until the whole image has been averaged in small parts.

If that's what you're calling a "noise model" okay, but to me it's just discrete averaging applied very carefully to the entire raw.

Hmm. Slow due to a badly-coded median filter? 30-pixel window processing shouldn't be that slow... but my background is in parallel supercomputing, so I might be a bit more careful about coding efficiency than DxO is?

That 30 pixel number is just a guess by me, and to be fair to DXO 10 Prime got faster.

But the software, when set to Prime, is clearly churning through a huge amount of data to look for pixels that pop out, so as to average them out with their neighbors.

And of course the only way to retain details would be to rerun overlapping segments, so say a hair that continues along for 100s of pixels is seen as a valid detail, not just noise that has popped into the signal.

Then the averaged square of pixels would have to averaged with another overlapping group so it wasn't just a blob of average in the middle of bumps+noise and detail.

And yes I think DXO is doing a good job and on the right track with Prime, but the feature needs some work and using it pins all 4 cores of my i7 processor.

Ahh, I see. Yeah but these two are not from the same universe.Chuck is a through & through salesman mouthpiece from Canon USA, he could just as well be selling you a used subaru. Setsuya is probably a physicist that has been designing Olympus cameras for 20 years. I am sure the mother company Canon has these kind of guys locked up in some basement somewhere in Japan being frustrated. These guys could explain exactly how the AA filter works.

It seems that Chuck Westfall has some kind of technical background. From Canon's biography:

"Chuck's involvement with digital cameras began in 1994, when he assisted Canon and Kodak engineers in developing the EOS-DCS series of professional SLRs. Since then, his responsibilities have expanded to include participation in the development and launching of many other Consumer Imaging Group products including Canon's professional and consumer-oriented digital cameras."

Congratulations! Olympus has very good strategies to keep. It sounds so true to hear "Its not the MPX only, also IS!" exactly. A little shake can effect the whole image, when lacking of light. Even at high ISO.

All my complain is, why the PEN Air has so deep body profile. It could be a bit wider but slimmer (like a credit card!) and we could attach it to our cell phones physically. Sure it would fit less for the adrenalin junkies, but for normal folks that would be easier to carry.

The Olympus Air is basically a Micro-4/3 camera. In the Micro-4/3 system, the distance between the camera's lens mount flange and the sensor must be approximately 20 mm. Therefore a credit-card thin Olympus Air is out of the question because the lenses would not work.

If this can be made to work handheld, with much faster shutter speeds, then it will be great for street shooters. Imagine the cropping they can do with a 40 MP file! You can leave the medium telephoto lens at home.

Yeah 1/60th of a second is a LOT of time for an Oly camera with the 5 axis IBIS. That multi-shot 40MP shooting mode could be used for a much larger variety of shooting situations if they can truly nail that.

I have three tripods and one monopod with me, monopod is attached to packbag and one large heavy tripod is in car trunk and two small tripods is in camera bag or in pocket' as other is 10cm long and other is 2-30cm long.

That way I have always a tripod if needed' usable against wall, light, tree etc.

Well, he's right about one thing. No one buys into a small and light system, then wants to carry a tripod around with them.

Once they get the High Resolution mode to work handheld, then they really have undermined one of the main reasons for buying a FF camera. You will be able to get high resolution results with the same little camera you carry around with you every day.

In the meantime, the EM5 II is still a very desirable camera, because it does some things my EM5 cannot do.

The cool thing is that you can take the tripod along and have your E-M5 II act like a "big camera" with big camera quality. And then when you go home, throw a small prime lens on there and enjoy all the benefits of a smaller one.

No, it's better to get technology into the market, then iterated and improve it over time. Think of the first autofocus lenses! They were very slow to focus. But there are always going to be early adopters who will give the technology a chance, giving it the support it needs in the marketplace, giving it time (and money) to mature.

Think of the first iPhone. When it was introduced, it had no third party apps, no app store, and didn't even have cut/copy/paste. These things were added later. Should Apple have waited? No, they got it into the market, and iterated as they went along. It certainly didn't hurt the popularity of the iPhone. And the rest is history.

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